This invention relates to groomer attachments for forklifts.
Moving and shaping soil, sand or debris is a task often encountered in landscaping and many industrial sites including, for example, sawmills. Such grooming jobs are sometimes attempted using a steel bucket or steel blade on a front-end loader or other type of tractor. Not only does this require special equipment on site, but such buckets and blades are rough, noisy and generally not well adapted to many such tasks. For example, the steel blades often catch on immovable objects such as slabs of concrete encountered during the grooming operation.
Forklift vehicles, also called "forklifts", are commonly used on many industrial sites such as sawmills. These are normally used for lifting pallets, containers, lumber and other such objects. Because they are so readily available, it would be desirable to utilize these vehicles if possible for other tasks such as clearing debris and grooming the surface of the ground.
Many attachments have been devised for forklift trucks such as the forklift mounted sweeping machine disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,150 to Best et al. However, this device is not well adapted for grooming operations or even exterior debris clearing on unpaved surfaces.